PC gaming is being "reborn" - Molyneux

By Ellie Gibson Published 22 March, 2010

Just look at FarmVille, says Lionhead boss.

Peter Molyneux has said PC gaming is enjoying a new lease of life thanks to the rise of social gaming.

"The surprising thing about the PC, that's just starting to happen now, is that gaming is being reborn on the PC," he told Switched.

"You've got Facebook, everybody's talking about Facebook games and there's this company called Zynga and they make these games with 88 million people," he continued, presumably referring to the likes of FarmVille.

"Everybody's making these big opus epics, and jealously looking at these Zynga new kids on the block and saying some disparaging things, quite often, about them. But it feels like everything involved in gaming is changing at the moment, and changing radically."

According to Molyneux, the arrival of new technology such as Project Natal and PlayStation Move is also creating a shift.

"It’s like I was born on PC. I felt it was this thing that was completely open-ended and that felt great," he said.

"When I skipped over to the console it felt like being slightly imprisoned by this box... But now they keep on giving us this new hardware stuff. Natals, Moves and input controllers - they kind of feel a bit more PC-ish."

Molyneux's next big opus epic, Fable III, is due out this "holiday". Visit the gamepage for more info.

Picture of Ellie.

About Ellie Gibson

Since joining Eurogamer in the mid 2000s, Ellie has written about subjects as diverse as the fall of Gizmondo, the rise of Hollyoaks actresses in Red Alert games and the noise a bear makes under NSFW circumstances.

Read more articles from Ellie by visiting the Ellie Gibson archive page.

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Comments (33) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • doulema #1 2 years ago

    On one hand you have Molyneux having manners and then Sony waving of their WiiMove with just better accuracy and telling us where the future is when thats just Back to the Future. Glad that he at least has some respect and more knowledge of whats really going on instead of trying to manipulate competitively.

    I'll go play some GoW III since I just got out of work before i rest for now. As for Facebook etc. I love my PCs and they will never be replaced even if I own also a PS3 and 360 but I'm sorry, Facebook generation is really not my thing. I'll just play some poker if I ever have any time to kill and no chicks around but that's about it.

  • altitude2k #2 2 years ago

    Peggle FTW!

  • Skurmedel #3 2 years ago

    Everybody's making these big opus epics, and jealously looking at these Zynga new kids on the block and saying some disparaging things, quite often, about them.

    Yes, because they are doing some dubious shit. I don't think its jealousness.
    Edited by 1 at 22/03/10 @ 09:26

  • Grayvern #4 2 years ago

    Loads of those facebook games use really dubious ways to get subscribers and make cash. So you have to make a distinction between them and casual games like plants vs zombies.

    Then again for my mum its been downhill she went from playing tomb raider (on pc) more than me back in the day, which was one of my christmas presents from her, to mafia wars.

    But seriously Eurogamer is the only reason you post Molyneux's opinion because of how it makes people rage in the comments. Because he really is annoying.

    Yes casual gaming is growing but we have also had far more traditional, and really good videogames coming out lately too.

    And Molyneux really isn't as well informed as posting his driveling gives him credit for.

    Edited by 2 at 22/03/10 @ 09:44

  • teabagger #5 2 years ago

    Gaming is diversifying certainly, but all this talk of being reborn or assuming that because your sister plays farmville the consoles are going to die is taking things a bit far.

    Incidentally, does anyone know how to block Mafia Wars and Farmville updates from appearing on the facebook iPhone feed? I really couldn't give a fuck that such-and-such has found a lost kitten on their farm.

  • spekkeh #6 2 years ago

    Does anyone believe Farmville's statistics? I think it's even worse than Second Life. People click on the wrong spam link (and they spam a lot) in Facebook, and then every time they sign into Facebook (and not Farmville), they're noted down as "active user".

    The only people I know who play Second Life are (female) Arts researchers, who talk convoluted nonsense about how they study online presence and digital culture, while all they're doing is studying other researchers who are touting the same. And then last game conference I attended, people were talking about how everyone is playing Farmville. Ugh.
    Edited by 1 at 22/03/10 @ 09:45

  • spekkeh #7 2 years ago

    @Grayvern

    And Molyneux really isn't as well informed as posting his driveling gives him credit for.

    Molyneux is always on the lookout for new stuff happening in the games industry, yes that makes him biased, and maybe not so well-informed about the normal stuff going on (incidentally, that may be why games like Fable 2 have all these new ideas but are so hopelessly outdated in the game design department).. But I wouldn't necessarily call that a bad thing, the stuff he is saying (and isn't bullshit MS marketing babble) is still pretty interesting.

  • Kerome #8 2 years ago

    Only about a year behind the news... or maybe two years...

  • UncleLou #9 2 years ago

    Incidentally, does anyone know how to block Mafia Wars and Farmville updates from appearing on the facebook iPhone feed? I really couldn't give a fuck that such-and-such has found a lost kitten on their farm.

    Been wondering the same thing, but couldn't find anything in the settings. It's annoying as hell.

  • hiddenranbir #10 2 years ago

    The only farm game I play is Maxis' Sim Farm.

  • RobotRocker #11 2 years ago

    Games industry encourages successful video game that is known to have a scam operation, that targets young children in particular, behind it.

    I want to be surprised, I really, really want to. Please tell me this is one big joke.

  • the_mtfr #12 2 years ago

    PC gaming was never dead. Petey M you twat, climb out of your little box you live in and stop lecturing us.

  • butler` #13 2 years ago

    Bloodkult, take this how you want, but if your wife has steam she's probably not strictly a "casual gamer" per se :)

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #14 2 years ago

    PC gaming never really 'died' ever since the NES/Master System days it's always played second fiddle to consoles as it's never really been advertised as a gaming platform first and formost a pc is a worktool, it's only really evoled into a major gaming platform over the past 20 years.

    The PC really is still strong on the online and RTS fronts and it's really only lost one of the main stables of it's gaming to the console, the FPS, which latly seems to be the 'it' genre to make, dispite WoW giving the PC the MMO boom in focus we've been mainly looking at FPS games for the past 5-10 years as the main core of gaming, if RTS games where to ever go big again it's more then likly pc gaming would 'live' again, as logically as said it's more viable to play a RTS on pc then console, dispite Halo Wars being a great example of console RTS working.

    The only serius problem with PC gaming these days is DRM, the publishers are beening far too harsh with it, EA for example did a great idea with 'project 10 dollor' and then went OTT with C&C4, we all know that the games will get pirated ethier way and TBH you don't 'lose' sales from pirates as the World of Goo guys pointed out, as they weren't going to buy the game anyway - the sales are lost via harsh DRM, which even tho we keep telling them, no one is listerning as they 'know better'.

    The whole irrony behind PC DRM anyway is that the publishers beleave thats it's only PC gaming that has the pirates when it fact console gaming is just as bad with chiped consoles and copied disks, I've yet to see an age where we've been chip free since the advert of disk gaming, and heck look at the handheld market modded PSPs, DSes with R4 and jailbroken Ipods - and PC gets targeted for uber DRM?

    Bottom line is PC gaming isn't 'dead' it's just lost positive media focus with the 'it' genres being on console and the current influx of DRM fkups

  • Quak #15 2 years ago

    Hmm, not too sure the "PC gaming isn't dead!" crowd on here had Famrville and Peggle in mind when they were defending their format...

    In fact, this statement seems quite condescending/insulting/both.

  • Kremlik Verified Co-Founder, Crash To Desktop #16 2 years ago

    @Quak - bare in mind the 'orginal' pc game was mindsweeper and solitare, followed by the likes of Simcity and Civ - it's hardly a big change from the 'norm' of pc gaming.

    As I said in my first post PC is still the RTS king in which some ways Sim and God games are an exstenion of that, and yes I forget about Puzzle based games but then thats basically on everything these days

  • Britesparc Verified Creative, ITV #17 2 years ago

    Incidentally, does anyone know how to block Mafia Wars and Farmville updates from appearing on the facebook iPhone feed? I really couldn't give a fuck that such-and-such has found a lost kitten on their farm.

    Been wondering the same thing, but couldn't find anything in the settings. It's annoying as hell.
    I'd LOVE to write a Facebook app that allowed you to specify what updates you recieved from other people, and get rid of all those Farmville, etc, ones...

  • Acrid #18 2 years ago

    Farmville? FaceBook? Molyneux you're an idiot.

  • reality_cheque #19 2 years ago

    Block apps on your PC facebook page, and they'll stop appearing on the iPhone.

    Farmville isn't a game, it's a fucking cult. With almost as dodgy practices as scientology.

  • Pulsar_t #20 2 years ago

    Glad I don't have an iShite then.

  • Britesparc Verified Creative, ITV #21 2 years ago

    How do you do it then? I don't want to stop receiving all my friends' updates... just the Farmville, etc, ones are so ubiquitous, it sometimes feels all people do all day is play games via Facebook!

    Which is actually pretty cool, I think, just, y'know, don't go on about it :-)

    TBH, I don't really care, I hardly go on FaceAche these days anyway.

  • ignatiusjreilly #22 2 years ago

    @Britesparc: http://ww w.howtogeek.com/howto/3934/bloc...

  • spekkeh #23 2 years ago

    pc gaming yeasayers are ignoring the fact that the total pc games market used to be equal to the console market 10 years ago (way shorter than the NES/Ms days, more like the N64/PS days), and is now more like a factor 1/7. That's what 'PC gaming is dying' means, not that it will ever physically die or even decline in total sales.
    Edited by 1 at 22/03/10 @ 13:44

  • ignatiusjreilly #24 2 years ago

    the total pc games market used to be equal to the console market 10 years ago (way shorter than the NES/Ms days, more like the N64/PS days), and is now more like a factor 1/7

    Without trying to be rude, statements like that are exactly what people get annoyed with. 1/7th of what? Revenue? Where did you get those numbers from or did you just make them up as you were writing your post?

    The most reliable figure I can find is that PC gaming brought in $13.1bn in revenue on 2009: [link url=http://www.industrygamers.com/news/p c-gaming-revenue-at-131-billion-in-2009/
    ]http://ww w.industrygamers.com/news/pc-ga...[/link]

    No matter how you define it (and yours is a rather unique definition), a $13bn industry is not dead or dying.

  • spekkeh #25 2 years ago

    PC Gaming Alliance to me is not reliable at all. Their report is only available to paying members of the PCGA itself, an association consisting of companies that propagandize the PC market. There's no way to validate any of their numbers.

    According to NPD, software retail was $580m for the PC (in the US only), am I really to believe that online and worldwide sales inflate this number by a 26-fold?

    Retail sales: PC 580m, Consoles 2.85b. So that's a factor five. (in my 1/7 I accidentally included hardware sales too, my bad) Of course, that's not including online distribution, which will definitely be higher for PC games. However, it also doesn't include WiiWare, XBLA, PSstore and Japan (I'm guessing Europe is about the same as the US).

  • ignatiusjreilly #26 2 years ago

    Well if you only include games that are sold in a brick and mortar shop in the US then your estimate is more realistic. But obviously we're not, and shop-bought games grow less and less relevant to PC gaming revenue figures every day.

  • sneetch #27 2 years ago

    @ignatiusjreilly
    Well if you only include games that are sold in a brick and mortar shop in the US then your estimate is more realistic. But obviously we're not, and shop-bought games grow less and less relevant to PC gaming revenue figures every day.

    Indeed, not to mention that the $13.1bn will also include other sources of revenue including subscriptions to MMOs and paid for DLC whereas the retail figures obviously won't.

  • spekkeh #28 2 years ago

    Great. Now read past the first line of my post.

  • ignatiusjreilly #29 2 years ago

    The rest of your post is just comparing retail sales figures. You can't remove the online part in your assessment of the health of PC gaming because you don't trust the figures.

  • TitusCrow #30 2 years ago

    I tried to play D&D mini adventures one time and got pwned some how I didn't understand.. that was the 1st and last facebook game I tried. I prefer real games. I feel highly suspicious of facebook after reading some article about it and info mining etc...

    *tuck's tinfoil hat over ears and check's firewall*

  • STRESSHEaD #31 2 years ago

    I don't wanna say anything harsh about the guy cos I don't really know his work past Fable and don't have all the facts... but I'll tell ya this... Fable and Fable 2 bored the bejesus out of me and I'm certainly not even curious about the third installment. So based on that I don't really put alot of stock on what he thinks about the future of gaming. As for Natal? I shall reserve my judgment and my money until I see some real appeal. I like my controller the way it is and they're gonna have to do something quite special for me to want to incorperate Natal into my XBOX experience.

  • Averice #32 2 years ago

    You block facebook apps from appearing in your newsfeed by mousing over them when they're in your newsfeed and selecting the hide button. Typically this button is used to block all messages from a user, but if the message is from a facebook app, you can choose whether you wish to block the user or the app. At least that's how it is with the US facebook... I can't imagine it's different for you guys.

    I like that PetMon compared the growth in the console market to "making it more like a PC". Since I'm a big PC fan.

    Also, if you think about it, the term "reborn" is being used because these are just the same old games that most pc and console gamers gave up on a long time ago, getting remade but they're able to permeate a larger audience. End result? You will eventually end up with a lot more gamers like us, that visit websites like eurogamer.net, in the future. It may take 5 years, it may take 10, may not take that many, but the numbers should go up. All of us started off on those same games, and graduated higher as time went on, I don't see any reason why new gamers shouldn't experience the same.

  • Spekingur #33 2 years ago

    Sim Farm FTW!

    Incidentally, does anyone know the name of an old game where you build a moonbase in Sim type of way? I remember having played this game but have not been able to find it (or the name of it).